The Enlightenment
Overview
During the 1600s and 1700s, belief in the
power of reason grew. Writers of the
time sought to reform government and
bring about a more just society.
Despite opposition from government and Church
leaders, Enlightenment ideas spread, and helped to
form the concepts of democracy and nationhood.
The Enlightenment
Enlightenment – The period in the 1700s
in which people rejected traditional
ideas and supported a belief in human
reason.
Natural Laws – According to some
philosophers, rules that govern human nature.
Thinkers:
• Thomas Hobbes
• John Locke
• Montesquieu
• Voltaire
• Denis Diderot
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• Mary Wollstonecraft
• Adam Smith
Wrote: Leviathan
Thomas Hobbes believed that
people were greedy and selfish,
and that only a powerful
government could create a
peaceful, orderly society.
Thomas Hobbs
Social Contract – An agreement
by which people give up a
state of nature for an organized
society.
Hobbes came to this view
during the English Civil War, and
favored absolute monarch,
which could impose order and
compel obedience.
Thomas Hobbs
Wrote: Two Treatises of
Government
Like Hobbes, John Locke was
also an English thinker of the
late 1600s, but he rejected
absolute monarchy and had a
more optimistic view of human
nature. Locke believed that
people were basically moral
and that all people possess
natural rights, such as the right
to life, liberty, and property.
Natural Rights – Rights that
belong to all humans from birth.
John Locke
John Locke
Locke argued that people
form governments to protect
their natural rights.
Locke also said that if the
government does not protect
these natural rights, then the
people have the right to
overthrow it.
This idea of a right to revolution
was radical at that time.
Locke’s ideas about natural
rights and revolution later
influenced Thomas Jefferson’s
writing of the Declaration of
Independence and the French
Revolutionaries.
John Locke
Wrote: The Spirit of the Laws
Wealthy French thinker Charles Louis
de Secondat (the Baron de
Montesquieu) studied ancient
history and the governments of
Europe. In his book he spoke well of
Britain’s limited monarchy.
He wrote that the powers of
government should be separated
into three branches: legislative,
executive, and judicial. The
separation of powers would
prevent tyranny by creating what
is called checks and balances.
Each branch could keep the other
two from gaining too much
power.
The Baron de
Montesquieu
President
Enforces
the Law
Supreme Court
Interprets the Law
Congress
Makes the Law
Voltaire
Voltaire wrote many books
and pamphlets in which he
defended freedom of
thought, and detested the
slave trade.
- Believed that the
state/government should
be separate from church.
- This separation would lead
to greater tolerance.
- Voltaire believed in free
speech, and used his
sharp wit to criticize the
French government and
the Catholic Church for
their failure to permit
religious toleration and
intellectual freedom.
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau
Wrote: The Social Contract
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was
another 1700s French
philosophe. He believed that
people were naturally good but
were corrupted by the evils of
society, such as the unequal
distribution of property.
He also believed that
government should not be too
powerful and must be freely
elected. Rousseau believed in
the will of the majority, which he
called the “general will.
-Government ruled through
popular sovereignty.
Impact of the Enlightenment
Democracy
Enlightenment ideas
inspired a sense of
individualism, a belief in
personal freedom, and a
sense of the basic
equality of human
beings. These concepts,
along with challenges to
traditional authority,
became important in the
growth of democracy.